I really just think they bit off more than they could chew in the time frame they were given. I think upper management is making decisions that the rank and file can't keep up with, but they're trying.
As with any growth spurt, there's going to be things that work, and things that won't. But am I hopeful that foundation is being laid for future years? I do think so. By next year, all this infrastructure will already be in place, and it's just tweaking things for them to have an incredible year. This one will probably just take them a while to get their stride.
Should have they waited longer to open? Probably. But did the upper management likely want to milk every possible penny from a lengthy haunt season and have dollar signs in their eyes? Do I really even need to answer that last question?
Even HHN this year has been off to a rough start. Wait times are really off, ops are terrible, and I've had more run throughs that miss more elements than hit. There are more missing scareactor spaces at HHN than I've ever seen before.
What I am curious about is how the crowd levels were, if the chaperone policy had any sort of effect (both in crowd behavior and crowd sizes), and if they really did a hard close like they said they would. Because I did check the SFMM app earlier that day, and it had listed the park hours as 10:30am - 1am. You'd think if it were a hard close, they would have closed at around 6pm.
I do generally enjoy FF, but I do keep my expectations in check. I go in with low expectations, and more often than not, it usually isn't as bad as people usually say (at least in my experience).